Pastors, police officials: Rebuilding trust will take time, effort

Local pastors and community organizers are hoping a combination of newly available technology and old-fashioned common sense can combine to ease racial tensions inflamed by shootings involving police officers in Wichita and around the country.

David Gilkey, who runs a youth mentoring program, worked with a group of Wichita East High students to develop a laminated card listing what to do – and what not to do – when stopped by the police.

“A lot of them don’t know what to do,” Gilkey said of high school students. “Many adults don’t know.”

Gilkey said he has distributed about 3,000 of the cards since they were first produced earlier this year, including to students at four Wichita high schools and 120 boys he’s mentoring through his organization Rise Up for Youth. The cards were paid for through a grant from Koch Companies Public Sector, he said.

“I think this is information that needs to be all across the country … if nothing else, the state of Kansas,” said Gilkey, who plans to take some to a conference in Washington, D.C., early next year.

Wichita police Capt. Rusty Leeds called the lists “common-sense courtesies that make perfect sense.”

“What they all have in common is, whether you agree with the stop or not, if you maintain a calm and non-threatening, non-argumentative demeanor and let the officer work through the car stop, things are going to go more smoothly,” Leeds said. “Confrontation is what triggers anxiety in police officers and citizens.”

Bishop Wade Moore of the Christian Faith Center said he would like to see the tips inserted into driver’s license manuals so they’re seen by a wide audience.

Gilkey said he understands why adults and teenagers alike might feel uneasy if they’re pulled over by police. It’s a universal reaction, he said.

“You still get that little feeling in your stomach: ‘What did I do?’ ” Gilkey said.

Younger drivers may not handle those situations well.

“If you get pulled over, you’re going to automatically go into a panic mode,” East High student Kasi Ross said. “The biggest thing is to try to avoid that.”

Drivers pulled over by police have to be careful not to make things worse by disobeying officers’ requests or by arguing with them, said T. LaMont Holder, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church.

“As a citizen, we don’t have to exacerbate an issue that is already filled with tension,” he said.

Officers are taught that motorists stopped for a traffic violation are going to be nervous, Leeds said.

“There’s never a routine car stop,” he said, “but they are trained to, if there are no cues of potential danger, no cues of potential threat, the routine they go through is pretty structured.”

Motorists who act furtive or fidgety, who try to reach under the seat or try to open the door so they can run, will raise an officer’s suspicions, Leeds said.

Wichita police are in the process of acquiring body cameras for use by all officers on duty. A department goal of having all officers using them by the end of the year was scuttled by a delay in the arrival of federal funds intended to pay for them. Police officials say they expect to order the rest of the needed cameras as soon as funding arrives.

The department has purchased and deployed about 200 body cameras, Leeds said, with a similar number on the waiting list.

Holder and others said those cameras should give residents more peace of mind.

“It’s going to hold the law enforcement officer … accountable,” Holder said. “Is this clearly a profiling situation? Was there a legitimate reason for the officer making that stop?

“All those things will now be captured in a way that in years past they have not been captured.”

Community interaction

But cards and cameras aren’t enough, police officials and others say. More needs to be done to rebuild the trust between residents and law enforcement.

“There’s so much tension between the community and the police department because of many inappropriate stops and many inappropriate arrests and aggressive behavior by the police department,” Holder said.

“It’s going to take time,” Deputy Chief Hassan Ramzah said. “It’s going to take working together. Part of that is community policing, staying focused on building positive relationships.”

It means providing the public with “a better understanding of what we do,” he said.

Moore said he wants to see police officers interacting with children and adults in settings that do not involve crime – summer camps, for example – or just chatting on the street.

“It’s necessary to get out there and build those types of relationships … and just show them the other side of policing,” Moore said.

A long-term approach to the issue is necessary, Ramzah said, and it can’t just focus on a few problem neighborhoods.

“You have to remember to connect with all demographics” in the community, he said.

This story was originally published December 26, 2015 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Pastors, police officials: Rebuilding trust will take time, effort."